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Orgo Night (And Associated Protests, Counter-Protests) 2012

By Bwog Staff on
Dec 13, 2012137 Comments

With all the controversy the CUMB has been stirring up in the past few hours, you’d be a fool to miss Orgo Night. You’d also be a fool to give up your hard-won Butler seat, though, and to stuff your way into a crowd of desperate, tired people. Below, the best of both worlds: a live stream of all the political incorrect insanity of CUMB, five inches away from your face. Enjoy (or be offended by) the show. Bwog will be updating this post throughout the night, as well as tweeting from on the scene.

The band’s live stream isn’t working yet, but you can keep checking here.

Update, 11:59 The full text of the letter being handed out by black-clad protesters:

Dear Columbia Students and Members of the Columbia Community,

Recently, the Columbia University Marching Band put up flyers around campus advertising for Orgo Night. One flyer in particular stood out as offensive and unacceptable. This flyer contains the image of a pole-dancer with the title “The Gaza Strip” written above, and “Everybody wants a piece” written below. Thus, these posters link the history of massacres in Gaza, including the most recent attack where 160 Palestinians and 7 Israelis were killed, with the silhouette of a naked woman – all in the spirit of humour. This is not only deeply misogynistic and sexist in its objectification of women or its making light of sex-workers’ lives; it is also shockingly insensitive and offensive towards the intense suffering of the people of Gaza. This flyer sexualizes and trivializes violence, death, a high infant mortality rate, an extreme population density, serious malnutrition and a constant siege under threat of aerial bombing, for the sake of our entertainment. While we appreciate that the marching band has acknowledged the hurt that their flyer caused, we would like to emphasize that more than hurt feelings are at stake in this debate, and the problem is larger than one tasteless flyer. Like many jokes that characterize Orgo Night itself, this flyer is one instance of systemic racism, sexism, and rape culture, which harm each member of community.

We understand that Orgo Night is a Columbia tradition, and the student body values this annual event where on the night before the Organic Chemistry exam the Columbia University Marching Band performs in Butler Library. Our aim is not to undermine Columbia tradition. We do, however, want everyone who is a part of this community to ask themselves:

– Does Orgo Night have to be racist, sexist, and extremely offensive on multiple levels in order to be fun? – Do we have to laugh at the systematic killing of thousands of civilians in order to advertise events? – Do we have to trivialize the lives of sex workers to let off the stress of finals? – Do we have to objectify the bodies of women as a tool to mock a people whose history of oppression we can not comprehend?

To the Columbia community we ask, do you find these messages of racism, sexism, insensitivity, etc, appropriate? Can you stand by this flyer? We cannot because we value this community, and respect all of its members regardless of how they identify. It is because we respect our community that we think all people of color should be able to attend Orgo Night without having to watch other students laugh at the murder of Trayvon Martin, as was the case last year. It is because we respect our community that we think people of any and all genders should be able to go to their library without being confronted with flyers that use sexist depictions of women’s bodies to promote their events.

Above all, it is because we respect our community that we believe Columbia University must truly be a safe space for all its members, as it promises to be. We do not believe students can feel secure in their learning environment while their identities are being disrespected so blatantly, and their suffering used as a source of humor. We also do not wish to believe this is the image the Columbia community chooses for itself. We do not wish to believe that what is a valued tradition for this student body includes poking fun at other people’s suffering, or at the death of thousands ranging from 3-month-old babies to 80-year-old grandmothers. As conscientious members of this community we refuse to be part of this extreme insensitivity, misogyny, racism and sexism; we refuse to be complicit by our silence as this takes place, and we ask all conscientious members of our community to do the same.

For this reason we have decided to make our discomfort visible during Orgo Night itself, by way of organizing a silent protest. In doing so, we wish to reiterate that our desire is not to oppose the very idea of a night of fun for our community, but to point out exactly what aspects of this night distress us profoundly and create an extremely unsafe environment for many students. We hope that our silent act of protest will call the rest of our community to question the content of Orgo Night in light of its recent disrespectful flyering campaign, and will also give voice to all those who feel silenced by jokes that attack their identities and trivialize extremely traumatizing experiences.

Update, 12:11:Robert and Kristine of 1020 fame make a cameo. The real Robert yells “Fuck you!” from the crowd. Joke instantly got ten times funnier.

Update, 12:20:Condom balloons have also made an appearance. People are being told to have fun with them tonight. If only. (People’s interpretation of having fun with condoms = throwing them around like beach balls.)

Update, 12:23: The first blow to Bwog. Our layout has been mocked (you mean you guys don’t love it?!?!?!?!).

@Anonymous @Anonymous: The protestors wearing one black glove and throwing up the black power fist turned it into a race issue… but weren’t their jimmies got rustled because the fliers were belittling the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and promoting sexism?

@Are you? Are you white? Because if you are, you have no right to be offended. I’m sorry, but this is a racial issue. Unless you are a Palestinian who has directly experience hatred and racism, you have no conception of how offended you should be. If you are, okay, if you aren’t, check you privilege.

@Are you? Are you thinking I’m not serious? Because, to clarify, I am. There is no way a WHITE person, swaddled in a thick layer of stinking pale privilege, could ever comprehend what it is like to see your home destroyed by Zionist missiles. There is no way a WHITE person, securely under thrall of the international Jew, could ever understand what Israel means to those of us in its path. WHITEness is blindness. WHITEness is ignorance. So no, there is no SAWCASM here.

@Columbia White American Resistance You sawdy bout dem missiles? Why should I, or anyone else, made in America give a pig’s dick about Zionist/Mohammadan problems? If it were up to me, I’d pull every last American dollar from the region and let you pig-ignorant fucks slaughter each other, then pave the entire stinking desert with lard and napalm. Fuck you and fuck off.

@BC 14 Uh, Bwog, hosting streaming video on the web is highly suggestive of pornography, another type of video frequently streamed on the web, which is one of the major contributors to the anti-female, anti-queer atmosphere on Columbia’s campus. Please take down your streaming video or we will have no choice but to protest you, too.

@no. How dare you assume that that’s a joke. Simply by commenting, you’re promoting the idea that anyone who cares about these issues isn’t serious. And comments are a trigger for people who can’t read or have been banned from commenting.

@Progressive Democrats '16 Can we just be sensible and be like yeah make fun of everybody I don’t give a fuck… I might be a bit offended when you make fun of me, but i’ll laugh when you make fun of everybody and my social/racial/religious/ethnic group.

@Anonymous The USTREAM account belongs to CUMB, not Bwog. It’s CUMB that needs to get it together…Bwog, keep doing your job. These live updates and images of the event are excellent. It’s crazy how easy it is to forget those years when you actually had to be present at an event in order to experience it…

@*ummmmmmmmm Yes. totally freaking out. (this is my first final exam) (and why do they have to count for 40%????????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) (AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH)(Don’t know why I’m on here right now)

@BC 16 OMG do you go to barnard too???? I only wear clothes bought at thread stores and my “vintage” glasses and I think gender is an out-dated concept. I also brag incessantly at how me and my friends hang out in the “dangerous” parts of Brooklyn and how the NYPD are SUCH ASSHOLES, despite the fact that the only interaction I ever had with a police was when I was 15 and got scolded at for drinking in a public park. I will also waste half of your lesson by giggling and loudly advertising my student group, Lesbians against Mass Incarceration, (I’m straight and white by the way), where I will amaze you at how many times I can say “like” in a single sentence. And to cap it all off, my tits and ass aren’t even that good, but it’s OK, because all men are chauvinistic pigs and I don’t need them anyway.

@Absolutely But let’s be honest, how many of the clubs protesting actually give a shit about real strippers and instead would like to just fuel their own self-righteous indignation by labeling them as sex workers?

If by labeling strippers as sex workers you mean calling them prostitutes, yes, that could offend. But if you mean labeling strippers as sex workers in the sense that they work in the sex industry (like an engineer who designs sex toys, for example, or a sex columnist), I don’t understand why that would be offensive.

that being said, even without orgo night, there would still be all of the sexism and homophobia and whatnot on campus. it would still be there, we just wouldn’t get the handful of good jokes that DO come out of orgo night as a byproduct. by and large, i (as a barnard student) don’t think that’s what orgo night largely gears itself toward making fun of–so why not let them do their thing and let us laugh a little during finals?! they’re not bullying anyone; they’re equal opportunity, and poke at everyone INCLUDING themselves. and besides, this is fucking columbia guys, it’s not like we’re not all doing it in our dorm rooms anyways, the band just has the balls to say it…

lastly, the band likes to be offensive. THIS IS NOT NEWS! as someone above me said, NONE OF THIS MATTERS. shutting down orgo night won’t end homophobia or sexism or whatever (which is not, in my opinion, what it symbolizes in the first place, but i digress). columbia is not the issue–greater society is. go spend your time protesting there! CUMB loves CU. all of it. lighten up a bit?

(slash i have to say i didn’t love CUMB’s “response” posters, but it IS CUMB…)

@Ethan Kogan I think this comment is important because it unintentionally recognizes what the protesters actually felt. This WASN’T just about orgo night or the band, but rather about everything you said: a general acceptance of all the things which the band just compiles into one event.

@Anonymous I was extremely offended that one of the protesters tonight at Orgo Night brutally snatched and then popped the condom balloon that was innocently floating around the library. This symbolizes phallic mutilation and is marginalizing men everywhere.

The Columbia Organization Counter to Killjoy Students (COCKS) will be holding a counter-counter protest tonight at 1020 where we will get thoroughly pissed and forget that some people need to get angry to legitimize their groups.

@Hypocrites To the writers of the petition. How do you even know it’s a woman? You all are perpetuating your own stereotypes of what a woman’s body should look like. I don’t look like that and I’m a woma.
-_- I’m offended.

@Former Bandie Give them some time. If history is any guide, they’re probably at Tom’s right now recovering from the campus parade and reloading comments on Bwog to see if anyone thought the scriptreader was cute.

@Sherry J. Wolf This is so fucking disgusting, so absofuckinglutely sickening, that I may be fucking ill at this bullshit. This is the worst thing I could possibly imagine happening anywhere. I’ve never been more shocked in my entire life. This is utterly fucking shocking. I shit my pants when I saw this and staggered backwards gasping for air because I literally could not fucking believe this insane fucking bullshit. And don’t even get me fucking started on this white, patriarchal, cisgendered, Privileged*, racist, rapist, heteronormative, heteronationalist, heterorationalist, antihomofascist, misoqueerist, antigendernonconformist bullshit because then I will actually fucking rage.

@Anonymous Kills me how the protesters weren’t sure when to wave their “I’m offended” signs at the event. They didn’t even know what they were offended by…it’s just a case of groupthink, and it mocks the shit out of my human rights degree.

If you want the administration to censor anything, YOU ARE NOT A REAL RADICAL/FEMINIST/SOCIALIST. What wretched hypocrisy that these groups would hope for an administration tactic that their 1968 worthy predecessors showed solidarity in fighting.

@Actual socialist You realize that free speech is not a socialist idea? Free speech is a bourgeoisie liberal concept. No opinion on the rest of it, but seriously, you have no idea what socialist means.

Forget about free speech, I’m referring to encouragement for suppressing student mobilization. The Columbia administration doesn’t see Orgo Night as a free speech issue either…the mass of security guards out make that quite clear. For them, it’s a matter of tamping down anything related to student organizing outside of narrow, non-threatening confines. Whether your aim is to educate people for social change or to rely on more direct action, this helps Columbia create a precedent for thwarting that. By pitting the student body against itself, no less.

But fine, there are multiple conceptions of socialism regarding free speech.

@Anonymous Forget about free speech, I’m referring to encouragement for suppressing student mobilization. The Columbia administration doesn’t see Orgo Night as a free speech issue either…the mass of security guards out make that quite clear. For them, it’s a matter of tamping down anything related to student organizing outside of narrow, non-threatening confines. Whether your aim is to educate people for social change or to rely on more direct action, this helps Columbia create a precedent for thwarting that. By pitting the student body against itself, no less.

But fine, there are multiple conceptions of socialism regarding free speech.

While I’m comparatively relatively ambivalent on the whole affair, this last sentence is fucking hilarious, and sums up every problem there is with post-modern protests since the late 80s. Or, in po-mo terms: “I find your blasé appropriation of essential protest terminologies PROBLEMATIC.”

@A band member Looking around during Orgo Night, it seemed like some of the protestors were warming up to it, realizing that we aren’t actually as heinous as they thought we were gonna be. Regardless of whatever we did, we’re not sexist, we’re not racist, and we’re actually mostly pretty liberal people ourselves. We even respect your causes, to the extent which we respect anything. However, that doesn’t stop us from making fun of everything.

@LULZ Let the butthurt rain down the downvotes. Seriously kids, your parents are shelling out all this money for you to ignore finals and protest a trivial comedy show? Does a shitty pun really require this? How many Columbia University students does it take to change a lightbulb? Sixty. One to change the lightbulb, thirty to protest the lightbulb’s freedom of choice to be changed, and twenty-nine to counter protest.

@Does anyone else think It seems like that letter promotes a very not sex-positive view. Any woman who wants to be a stripper is automatically in some sort of bad situation? Is there something wrong with being a sex worker (do strippers even count as “sex workers?”)?

@Poet Emeritus I’d just like to point out that at no point during any Orgo Night did we ever even mention Treyvon Martin, and I don’t understand why the groups involved with this protest felt the need to fabricate such information on their flyer. There are plenty of valid points to be made about Orgo Night’s humor without blatantly lying about its content.

@anonymous @Are you?: You’re the most racist one here, as far as I’m concerned. You’re making all sorts of conclusions about a group of people because of the color of their skin. How is this different from thinking blacks/jews/hispanics/asians/amerindians/etc. are inferior?

@Asma al-Assad As a exotic dancer, I am deeply offended that my profession was characterized as a “sex worker.” The term sex worker implies intercourse and promiscuous relations between the (fe)male sex worker and the client. Rather, exotic dancers are performers in the sense of artist of the human form.

Therefore I demand a FULL RETRACTION of this coldhearted, crass, feelingless, heartless, imperceptive, obtuse, ignorant, insensible, mindless, misinformed, moronic, uneducated, unenlightened, uninformed, unintellectual, unlearned, unmindful and stupid generalization as used in the letter distributed by protesters of the Columbia University Marching Band.

In addition, on behalf of all my fellow exotic dancers and artists, I demand a FORMAL APOLOGY from the:

@The Orgo Knight This is what happens when sensitivity replaces sensibility. If you want to break it down, Columbia style, this is how you manufacture a narrative about narratives, construct a construct about constructs, conflate satire (or just plain sophomoric silliness if you prefer) with signifier, and Take that ugly mass and filter it through a cultural lens that is wholly dependent on outrage and voilà: you’ve got all the makings of a story–and it’s just that, remember? A STORY–fit for national news, public outrage, and late night procrastination.

@The Orgo Knight: Marketing Division It should be penis shaped, just to emphasize the point. Whistle-blowing alludes to heteronormative masculinist dominant sex acts in which wimmin are used as vessels for masculinist pleasure.

That should be in the whistle’s packaging.

P.S. A gun is a much better rape-prevention, er, tool. I recommend that every woman purchase one and learn to use it.

@King Slim These attempts to use reductio ad absurdum are pathetic. Use arguments to counter people, not sarcasm. The sarcasm demonstrates your incapability to advance a proper response to the contentions the protestors advanced.

@Anonymous Dear Protesters: When you try to have a serious conversation with someone who just wants to get a rise out of you, it’s not the issues you support that are made to be the butt of the joke, it’s you yourself. ;)

@alum Can’t you all take a minute to step back and appreciate the opportunities that columbia has afforded us as students. For instance, how blessed were we as a student body to get to witness both Curren$y tha hot spitta AND the Kush God live in concert at Bacchanal 2012. Riiiiiiiight.

@JStew So. The opposition was exercising their right to free speech in protest, right? Wrong. While it would be perfectly acceptable to protest something that you disagree with as an act of free speech, last night’s protester’s only did so because freedom of speech already defeated them. Initially, the “disgusted” parties took the route of censorship by asking the administration to cancel orgo night, force the posters’ removal, and “academically punish” (whatever that means) the band members. They used free speech to condemn the failure to curtail other free speech. That’s fucked up.

@A. As one of the students who protested, I’d just like to set the record straight. We didn’t ask for the posters to be censored. We didn’t ask for orgo night to be canceled. We didn’t ask for anyone to be academically punished (wtf does that even mean?). All we asked was to meet with the band to discuss why the flier was hurtful – and it was the band that invited the administrators to mediate said meeting (which was fine). The band then agreed to take down their fliers, and to issue an apology. The band wasn’t censored by the Powers That Be.

@As a bandie, this is untrue. We did not ask for the mediators. We were prepared to meet with concerned students in an informal setting, and at the eleventh hour we were told that the groups involved had asked for administrators to be present. Which makes sense, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but just trying to set the record straight.

@Twitch But you guys tried to take one of the last spaces where students feel that we can let loose and maybe relax the stifling rules that the administration uses to make sure our college experience doesn’t include enough drinking, weed and socializing and to apply even stricter, more rigorous rules than the ones that we’re trying to escape.

Most of campus is liberal. I know, I know, not as good as radical Marxism that shatters the bourgeois, privileged paradigms etc etc, but still, it’s not as if this campus is hostile to anti-sexism, anti-racism messages. And yet campus still didn’t back this. That shouldn’t be a signal to be disappointed with campus, but to reevalute your own critique of the student body (cuz that’s what last night was), because maybe, just maybe, it was way the fuck off base.

@Orgo fan I actually find most of the jokes to be pretty funny, but that is because most of them are well constructed and don’t rely on cheap humor. However there’s always the jokes that seem to be offensive on purpose and I feel like the people who enjoy those jokes and who keep defending them as “fun” are the people who probably listen to Dane Cook on their iPod and watch Two and A Half Men.

If your idea of fun is getting off on being mean spirited to other people you might need to check your priorities (or stop watching Adam Sandler movies).

I like Orgo Night. I just don’t think fun and humor have to necessarily exist with offense, racist jokes or sexist jokes. They are cheap, hurtful to marginalized groups, and don’t make you look too smart.

Another thing to remember, we go to college together as a community where we ought to respect each other. As much as the band wants to be, they aren’t stand up comics that people pay to watch. They are still students. If you can’t say something to someone’s face after you get off of a library table, you shouldn’t say it at all. Context is everything here.

@saddening Yea, there are things we can make of and point fun off. I get that people make light of terrible situations. But seriously? At what cost? There are tragedies and travesties around the world, and the reality is that it’s not funny. Not at all.
How many of you have seen the news today about the shooting in CT at an elementary school? It’s saddening and heartbreaking, because so many innocent children were killed. You cannot take such things lightly. I guess what I’m trying to say is this– I get the premise of orgo night, but there has to be a balance. You have to think about what you’re really saying. The fliers were not appropriate. The jokes about rape culture aren’t really funny in the grand scheme of things. Find other things to make fun of.

@my two pence Yea, there are things we can make of and point fun off. I get that people make light of terrible situations. But seriously? At what cost? There are tragedies and travesties around the world, and the reality is that it’s not funny. Not at all.
How many of you have seen the news today about the shooting in CT at an elementary school? It’s saddening and heartbreaking, because so many innocent children were killed. You cannot take such things lightly. I guess what I’m trying to say is this– I get the premise of orgo night, but there has to be a balance. You have to think about what you’re really saying. The fliers were not appropriate. The jokes about rape culture aren’t really funny in the grand scheme of things. Find other things to make fun of.

@Anonymous – Does Orgo Night have to be racist, sexist, and extremely offensive on multiple levels in order to be fun?
RE: Orgo Night always has a huge turnout, so yes, people think it’s funny and they’re rational enough not to take it seriously. The nature of comedy is offensive. Don’t like it? Don’t go.
– Do we have to laugh at the systematic killing of thousands of civilians in order to advertise events?
RE: No one did that ever. Don’t hyperbolize to make your point.
– Do we have to trivialize the lives of sex workers to let off the stress of finals?
RE: Again, stop assuming people did this.
– Do we have to objectify the bodies of women as a tool to mock a people whose history of oppression we can not comprehend?
RE: That is clearly not the way this flyer was meant to be interpreted. Stop making things up.

I’m offended that you all thought that the rest of the Columbia Community was ignorant and cold-hearted enough to think the things you assumed we did. Get off your high horse. You’re no better than anyone else.

@Disappointed It’s obvious all the anger and hatred spawning from the bwog commentators reveal an insecurity to being challenged. The sexist nature of some of these comments along with bwog’s tags “bitches”, “bitches going crazy” or whatever they are also showcase this fundamental lack of respect. i am a male with privilege but even to me it was obvious that was not a safe space for a lot of my friends. Where I come from, Texas, people make jokes like this all the time fullest understanding (and admitting) that they are sexist. At least those people don’t exude the angry self-righteousness that our “liberal” campus needs to overcompensate for issues everyone knows in the back of their minds are fucked up.

@Sherry J. Wolf In addition, let it be known, that any speech that threatens the new occupied world order of gender nonconformism, marxism, radical feminism, and general radical fuckism shall here by be censored. PLEASE. CHECK YOUR PRIVILEGE OR WE WILL CHECK IT FOR YOU. Enjoy the gulag, hetronormative, misogynistic fuckers.